The Congo in the Early 1990s

When Høeg was writing the story in the late 1980s, the situation in the Congo was deteriorating. After almost thirty years under a corrupt ruler, Mobutu Sese Seko (born as Joseph-Désiré Mobutu), the country, which had been known as Zaire since 1971, was nearly bankrupt. When the Cold War ended in the early 1990s, Mobutu lost financial support from Western nations, which had used the country's centralized location and Mobutu's resources to their advantage. As a result, he began to lose control of his regime.

The Escalation to World War II

The story takes place in 1929, another unstable time. The world was still recovering from World War I, while trying to prevent another world war. However, despite the Kellogg-Briand Pact, which outlawed war, attempts at world disarmament moved slowly. The more heavily armed states did not want to...